Popular North East TV and film stars will be headlining a Teesside film festival which will begin at the end of the month.

BBC TV star Robson Green and Coronation Street actor Bill Fellows, who stars as Stu Carpenter on the show, will be taking part in the second annual Tees Valley International Film Festival at Arc in Stockton between October 25 and October 28.

Green will take part in an onstage interview led by Fellows in which they will discuss the former's celebrated career.

He said he was relishing the opportunity to come to Teesside and was looking to attending the venue.

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The Northern Echo:

Green said: "“I was very fortunate to have Bill Fellows show me round some of the hidden gems in Teesside when we filmed “Weekend Breaks” in Saltburn last year.

"It was an incredibly joyous and entertaining few days with someone who is still very proud to call this part of the world home and I’m sure the joy and entertainment will flow once again when we’re onstage together at Arc in Stockton." 

Fellows said “It’ll be a real pleasure to work alongside Robson again.

"We’ve acted together many times over the past twenty years and have been firm friends from the start.

"So to be sharing a stage with Robson in my homeland will make the show even more special.” 

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The Northern Echo:

Oscar-winning film producer, David Parfitt, originally from Sunderland, will be attending the event.

Parfitt set up his first production company with Kenneth Branagh in the 1980s, worked with Martin Scorsese on Gangs of New York, won the BAFTA in 2020 for The Father, and brought home the Academy Award in 1998 for Shakespeare in Love.

He will talk about his journey from the streets of the North East to the Hollywood A-List in an interview with Middlesbrough’s Victoria Gibson, with a Q&A taking place at the end so audience members can seek advice from someone from the North East who made it to the very top.

Festival Director Michael Luke, from Darlington, said: “As well as the star-studded shows, TVIFF also showcases the best in independent film.

"For the past year we’ve been welcoming submissions of short films by undiscovered filmmakers from all over the world.

"A short list of the best of these submissions has been selected and these films will be shown as per genre over the course of the festival.

"At the Closing Ceremony: “An Evening with Robson Green”, we will also announce the winners of each category, so the headline event of TVIFF 2023 will be a very special occasion for many people for several different reasons”.

"TVIFF is much more than just a film festival. As much as we want to entertain, we also want to create opportunities for creatives in the region.

He said one of the initiatives we came up with is the TVIFF Scholarship, which will award £3,000 to the winning applicant to make a short film that we will premiere at next years festival.

Middlesbrough-born actor Mark Benton has agreed to act in the film and the event has collaborated with The Northern Studios in Hartlepool, the only large-scale film and TV studio in the North East.

The venue has donated two days free studio time to the Scholarship. The closing date for entry for the scholarship is Friday (October 20).

Ken Loach’s new film “The Old Oak” will be given a gala screening on the opening night of the festival, in which two of the lead actors, Dave Turner and Redcar’s Chris McGlade, will take part in an interview and audience Q&A after the showing of the film.

Most of the festival events will be on a 'pay what you decide' basis, with Michael Luke giving half of this income to the Darlington branch of The Dogs Trust.

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He said: “Progress is more important than profit to us, so we wanted to pass on as much of the festival income as we could to someone in the area that’s deserving of it, so it was decided that The Dogs Trust would be a great place to make our donation, in recognition of the tireless work they do and the joy that the beautiful animals that they care for and rehome bring to so many people across the Tees Valley."

The Northern Echo:

Other celebrity guests that appearing at the festival includes Ben Crompton from Game of Thrones, Hartlepool’s five time Mr Universe Eddy Ellwood, and Middlesbrough actor and star of Casualty and Goodnight Sweetheart, Elizabeth Carling.

For more info and tickets are available here.